South African Sign Language - One Language Or Many? a Sociolinguistic Question

South African Sign Language - one language or many? A sociolinguistic question Debra Aarons, University ofStellenbosch Philemon Akach, Deaf Federation of South Africa Introduction In this article we discuss the signed language used by the Deaf community in South Africa, and examine the historical conditions for its emergence. We describe the legal and actual situation of South Afiican Sign Language in South Africa today, particularly in relation to schooling. We investigate the different factors that underlie the claims that there is more than one sign language in South Africa, and we spell out the practical consequences of accepting these claims without further examination. We assume without argument that Deaf people in South Africa, far from being deficient, or disabled, are a linguistic minority, with their own language, South African Sign Language, and their own culture, South African Deaf culture2. Like everyone else in this post-modernist world, Deaf people have differential membership in many different cultures, on the basis of, for instance, religion, life-style, daily practices, political beliefs, and education. However, what they all have in common is membership in a community that uses signed language, and that socialises with other people who do the same3. Thus, the model we adopt is non-medical. We are not interestecihere in degree of hearing loss, the remediation of hearing, audiological measures, speech therapy, or any other medical views of deafness. We regard deafness oilly as the sufficient, but I In accordance with convention in the field of Deaf Studies, we use upper case D (Deaf) when we refer to people who identify with the Deaf community and who use signed language, and lower case d (deaf) to refer merely to the audiological condition. 2 See, for further argument and discussion, Aarons 1996. 3 For an interesting and full discussion of e.g., American Deaf Culture, see Padden and Humpluies, Voices from a Culture 1990. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics, Vol. 31, 1998, 1-28 doi: 10.5774/31-0-55 2 not necessary precipitant of signed language development, and our concern here is to examine certain sociolinguistic issues that come into play in the consideration of the status of the signed language used in South Africa. The status of natural signed languages internationally It is by now uncontroversial, at least among linguists, that natural signed languages used by the Deaf in different parts of the world, are fully-fledged languages, equivalent in all respects to all other natural languages that have been studied. They are acquired naturally by young children, at the same rate, and with the same ease that spoken languages are acquired. They are functionally capable of expressing the entire range of human experience that spoken languages are able to express; they have as many registers, and as much complexity as any other human language. Signed languages have phonological, morphological, syntactic, and semantic levels of representation. These have been shown to be exactly the same as those proposed for any other human language. The distinguishing feature of signed languages is that they are made through the medium of space, not sound, and that they use the hands, face, head and upper torso for their realisation. There is no one universal signed language. Signed languages, just like other languages, arise naturally, through use by a community of users in a context of natural use, and they evolve and develop over time as they are passed down from generation to generation. They differ from most spoken languages in the important respect that only 10% of deaf children are born to deaf parents, and thus, Deaf children tend to learn signed language from other Deaf children and adults, and not usually from birth, in their own homes. This, added to the fact that signed languages are not written down, probably leads to a slightly higher degree of variability in the signed language of a community. However, in general, the signed language used in one country is identifiably distinct from the signed language used in another country, particularly where these countries are geographically and historically unrelated. Thus, for instance, Namibian Sign Language and Thai Sign Language are mutually unintelligible. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics, Vol. 31, 1998, 1-28 doi: 10.5774/31-0-55 3 Furthennore, signed languages are not related to the spoken language of the geographical area in which they occur. Although English is the primary spoken language in Britain and the USA, the signed languages of these two countries are not related. If we compare American Sign Language and British Sign Language, we see that these two languages are mutually unintelligible. Historically, American Sign Language is related to Old French Sign Language, since the first teachers of the Deaf in the USA came from France. In any event, the indigenous signed language in the USA did not evolve from the indigenous signed language in Britain. South African Sign Language (as the case in point) can trace some of its influences to Irish Sign Language, but less so to British Sign Language. In certain countries of the world, the natural signed language used by the Deaf is accorded official status. The signed language used by the Swedish Deaf, for instance, is one of the official second languages of Sweden, and users of Swedish Sign Language, as a result, have all the language rights accorded to users of an official second language. Deaf people thus have a legal right to receive their schooling in signed language, and to have sign language interpreters provided for all their official interactions with the hearing public. This provides them with full access to the life of the country. Some natural signed languages, such as American Sign Language and British Sign Language have been fostered and developed, and as a result, their oral tradition has spawned a body of signed language literature, which is now captured on videotape and is studied and analysed. Thus, just as users of other languages keep a more permanent record of their artistic creations by writing them down ilnd studying them, users of signed languages, with the help of videotechnology, have taken the opportunity to do the same. These are a few examples of signed languages in countries which have recognised the language rights of their citizens and made provision for the development of these languages. More common, world over, is a deep and unfounded prejudice against Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics, Vol. 31, 1998, 1-28 doi: 10.5774/31-0-55 4 signed languages, and a consequent marginalization of Deaf people and their human rights. Signed language in South Africa It is estimated that approximately 500 000 South Africans use a signed language in their daily lives. The vast majority of these are Deaf, although there is a small number of hearing people, usuaUy children of Deaf adults or professionals working closely with members of the Deaf community, who use signed language regularly and frequently. Although South African Sign Language is not one of the eleven official languages of South Africa, it is mentioned explicitly in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa as one of the languages of South Africa that must be promoted, and for which adequate conditions for ongoing development and use must be created. Furthermore, and importantly, the South African Schools Act of 1996 states that South African Sign Language is to be the medium of instruction (now known as the language of learning) in schools forthe Deaf Thus, although South African Sign Language is not an official language of the country, it does have the status of a medium of instruction in schools that are set up specificalJy to cater for the needs of Deaf pupils. In reality, the present situation in schools for the Deaf does not, by any means, conform to the stipulations of the South African Schools Act. Deaf pupils are not educated through the medium of a signed language, either because there are very few teachers of the Deaf who are fluent in a signed language, or because the schools have policies that allow for a combination of speech and signs (an awkward and unnatural pastiche), or the schools have policies of total oral ism. Aside from the fact that the current situation is illegal, and violates the human rights of Deaf pupils, who do not physically have access to a spoken language, owing to the obvious fact that they are unable to hear, there are serious linguistic issues at stake that have ramifications for the education and literacy of Deaf children and for their future as productive citizens of the country. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics, Vol. 31, 1998, 1-28 doi: 10.5774/31-0-55 5 Historical development of South African Sign Language Schools for the Deaf The history of the signed language used in South Africa is closely linked to the development of schools for the Deaf. As is the case world-wide, in· South Africa, signed language developed where there were communities of Deaf people who used their hands and faces in order to communicate. The most natural places for this to have happened are residential schools for the Deaf, irrespective of their official policies on signing. Deaf people tend to seek out communities of other Deaf people, and the signing that has evolved around school centres tends to spread into Deaf communities, even if only some of their members have actually attended school. Not only did residential schools for the Deaf provide the physical conditions for signed language to evolve, they were and are the centres for the evolution of Deaf culture. It is in schools for the Deaf that the pupils understand that what they have in common is the fact that they are all Deaf, and that, in general, their families are not, and that they can communicate naturally and easily with other Deaf people.

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